How to Save a Life(31)

I sobbed. Great wracking sobs for saying those words out loud for the first time in years. “She killed herself, Evan, but… but wasn’t that my fault?”

“No.”

“I drove her to—”

“It wasn’t your fault, Jo,” Evan said fiercely. “None of it. None of it was your fault. Not what Jasper did. Not your mother. Nothing.”

“But isn’t that why she’s gone? Even the good memories of her are gone. Grayed out and so far away. Because I did that? Isn’t that why?”

“No, Jo. That’s not why.”

“I just want her back. Even one little piece of her, one happy memory…”

I cried hard from my chest and throat. Evan held me. His heartbeat steady and strong, his breath even and deep. The crying lurched to an end. I sank further into the circle of his arms, drained.

“What happened to your uncle?” he asked finally, wiping my tears with the cuff of his shirt.

“He’s gone. He died in jail waiting a hearing. Asshole croaked of a heart attack before he could feel the weight of any justice and that sucks. But he’s gone. I never have to worry about him getting out parole.” I sniffed. “I don’t care about him anyway. I just want her back. My mother. I could have survived Jasper, I did survive Jasper.”

Evan held me tighter, not offering empty words. Only his presence, which was more valuable to me than anything. But for how long? He knew the whole truth about what my uncle had done to me. The shame of it made me tremble.

“Do you…” I swallowed, tried again. “Do you still want to be with me?”

Evan’s dark eyes looked down, irises colored by my story. His jaw muscle twitched, and it took him a moment to answer.

“Shut up,” he said, his voice gruff. “Don’t ever say that again.”

I half-laughed, half sobbed as his hands came up to brush the hair from my face. “Evan…”

“You are the bravest girl I’ve ever met.” He kissed my forehead, pressing his lips to my skin. Then his mouth whispered down my cheek and kissed the scar. “And beautiful.”

I closed my eyes as he kissed the rest of my face: my other cheek, my chin, the tip my nose. And finally my lips. His mouth soft on mine, with no intention except sweetness.

We kissed and held each other, together in that place where ancient tribes came to lay down their dead and release their ghosts. A private communion between two lost souls. Two ghosts who thought they were too broken to be of worth to anybody, now reborn. Alive and at peace as the sun sank behind the trees, rimming them in fire.





The house was empty that night. Gerry was on his long haul and wouldn’t be back for another week. I sat at my desk in my dark bedroom. The window was open and except for chirping insects and the occasional truck trundling by on the highway, all was quiet.

In the dark, I wrapped Evan’s blue and black plaid flannel around myself tighter and my fingers contemplated a blank piece of paper on the desk.

I tapped my pen to my lips. They were still warm and swollen from Evan’s voracious goodnight kisses. I sucked on the lower one, still tasting him. My body could feel his hands. My eyes remembered him looking at me one last time before he went away down my front walk.

I put the collar of his shirt to my nose. I inhaled deeply, eyes closed. Words—the right words, the most perfect words—bloomed in my mind. My thoughts put down roots, reached stems and leaves out and up. The patch of dry dirt in my soul, dead and barren for years, now a garden.

The light’s flipped on, Josie!

I clicked on the reading lamp, inhaled Evan’s scent again, then put my pen to paper.

I wrote it all down.





“Ready?” I said.

“Not yet.”

Evan took in short breaths, one after another, then let them all out. He did this several times and the smartass in me itched to make a joke. But Evan’s eyes closed and his face grew so still, I doubted he would’ve heard me. It looked like meditation.

Then he dropped under the water.

I hit the “go” button on my cell phone and watched the seconds take off and add up. I tapped my feet, then gnawed my lower lip. One minute, two minutes, three…

With a spraying arc of water, Evan surfaced.

“Three minutes, forty-eight seconds,” I said.

“Damn.” Evan swam to the edge and rested his arms on the cement, breathing heavily. “That sucked.”

“Sucked? I’ve never seen anyone in my life hold their breath almost four minutes.”

“I was over four minutes the other night,” he said. “Go again?”

“I don’t know. It’s freaking me out. Like I’m sitting here watching you drown.”

“Maybe later?”

“We’ll see.”

I put my cell phone away and stripped down to my bathing suit, letting Evan watch me this time. I was in the water and in his arms moments later.

He smiled his beautiful smile, the one that made me feel like a gift that fell in his lap.

“Hi, Jo.”

“Hi, Evan,” I said and then we were kissing.

We kissed forever. I’d never known anything so goddamn good. Evan’s mouth, his lips, his tongue… I’d never wanted a boy so badly. All my meaningless hookups were about control. Me calling the shots, deciding when, who, where and how much.